Laguardia

Laguardia and its surrounds can be defined as a huge Anthropologic and Historic Museum, where each stone, each wall or each noble house shows centuries of history and war of different civilizations.
Laguardia is a beautiful vila located high up on a mountain, in Alava region. It was founded in the X century as a defense of the Realm of Navarra against the Realm of Castilla.

Without any doubts, the Medieval Age was the historic period that defined the currently image of Laguardia. Its first name had a defense meaning : La Guardia de Navarra, that means The Guard of Navarra.
Was in this period, in the year 1164 that the king Sancho VI gives to Laguardia the status of “town” and several royal privileges to Laguardia inhabitants that bring about a big expansion of the vila.

We have to mention an special place for the visitants : The church of Santa María de los Reyes, with an eclectic style, a renassaince facade and a XIV century Gothic Gate, the only one in Spain due to the great conditions of the polichromy in the facade.

Furthermore, we can not forget to mention San Juan Bautista’s Church, the Mary, La Casa de la Primicia ( the oldest building in Laguardia ) and the Abacial Tower, an ancient defensive castle, restored on a bell tower. All this buildings and several mored completes an interesting tour around the History, art and legends that flows from each stone of this vila, definitely something magic.

One more detail that will shock the visitants is the fact that the subsoil is hollow, the reason is the dozens of wine cellars and caves dugs put of the rock under the houses and the streets… it seems that we are in the Roman Catacombs…

If you want to enter in the origins of our ancestros, the ancient habitants of this Hills, you can visit the archaeological excavations of the Prehistoric Village de la Hoya, from the XV century B.C. ; one of the most important sites of the Basq Country.
After, you can continue the route through the dolmens of Cantabrian Range and finish in the Roman archaeological site called ‘Las Pilas del Camino de Logroño’ , an ancient ceramic workshop.